It’s Sunday and it’s time to bathe Bonnie. She is so pretty, just like me. She has red hair and brown eyes. She has four sets of clothes, matching shoes and purse. Usually on Sundays, that is, after taking a shower, she wears her pink frock with a silk ribbon and red hearts. She is my best friend and I am hers. When Papa hits me, or mum doesn’t talk to me, I go tell her. She says things will be fine and that I just need to grow up faster. I tell her I want to, too.

Yesterday, Mr. Chackonas, Papa’s friend, came home. He was nice to me. He kissed me on my cheeks and told me to sit on his lap. He kept tickling me with his finger all over my body. At some places it hurt. Papa and he were having Whiskey. Mr. Chackonas said he will show me a trick, but for that, I would have to pick up my frock above my tummy. I did as he said, and he filled his mouth with air and blew on the little hole I have in my tummy, loudly. His moustache pricked. I felt ticklish.

When Papa went to sleep on the couch, he came to my room. He wanted to play with my doll, he said. I said, “Her name’s Bonnie.” He said, “Let’s give Bonnie a bath,” and I said, “I give her a bath only on Sundays.” He smiled and asked me whether I liked Bonnie with clothes or without them. I think he heard me chuckle and got angry. I said I am sorry, and said I like her with clothes. He said he likes his doll without clothes, because she looks prettier, and said his doll’s name is Anne. I said my name is Anne and he said, “Oh is it?”

 He then turned off the lights and said, “Let’s play hide and seek.” I said I love playing hide and seek. But, he doesn’t know how to play the game. I counted till ‘five Mississippi’ and turned around, but he was still sitting at the same place, looking at me. He said my frock is dirty, and dusted it slowly with both his hands. When I’d say “Caught you,” he’d say, “I love you.” And I thought he should be saying that to his Anne, not me. I tried to teach him the rules, but he didn’t understand. Poor Mr. Chackonas.

But, he has good eyes. He said he saw a cockroach go up my leg, and said, I shouldn’t scream, otherwise the cockroach will get mad and bite me. He promised he will find it for me and throw it out of the window. I sat on the bed quietly, while Mr. Chackonas tried to find the “big, black, red-eyed cockroach” that was hiding somewhere under my frock. Just then my brother came and turned on the lights. He got so angry, that he punched Mr. Chackonas in the face. Then he screamed, and called him ‘Pervert.’ I said his name is Mr. Chackonas, but he kept punching Mr. Chackonas till he couldn’t move. He also used the word my Papa uses when he talks to mum. Then my brother kicked Mr. Chackonas in his peepee, and Mr.Chackonas cried like mum does at night, when Papa goes into the bedroom and shuts the door. I have heard Papa say, “It won’t hurt,” to mum so many times, but mum keeps saying, “No, Please. No.”

I don’t like my brother.

Something red came out of Mr. Chackonas’ pants. He moved his knees from one side to another. Then he stopped moving. My brother looked at me and said, “You are stupid.” But he wasn’t angry at me. He put a pillow on his face and started crying.

I took Bonnie to the kitchen. It was her dinner time.